Simpson Thacher

ABOUT THE FIRM  

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is one of the world’s leading international law firms. The Firm was established in 1884 and has more than 1,000 lawyers.  

Headquartered in New York with offices in Beijing, Brussels, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, São Paulo, Tokyo and Washington, D.C., the Firm provides coordinated legal advice and transactional capability to clients around the globe.  

The breadth of the Firm’s practices provides associates with enviable opportunities for professional development and growth. This, coupled with Simpson Thacher’s collegial culture, sets the Firm apart from its peers.  

TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT  

Training begins when associates walk through the door at Simpson Thacher and a broad curriculum of continuing education is provided to associates at all levels. The Firm is committed to allowing associates to have a voice in the types of work that they do through centralized staffing, which is a cornerstone of our development plan. Simpson Thacher’s professional development programs include: 

• STBAdvance – To help associates at important transition points in their careers, third and fifth-year associates participate in STBAdvance, which incorporates training across multiple subject areas to help accelerate the development of leadership behaviors and next-level skills as associates become more senior.  
• Development Mentor Program – Associates are paired with a partner mentor to help guide them and to serve as a sounding board during their first three years at the Firm.   
• Associate Benchmarks – Because the development and advancement of associates is important at Simpson Thacher, the Firm introduced and promotes associate benchmarks to provide clear, illustrative guidelines for associates to help guide their professional growth and development. 

PRO BONO 

Simpson Thacher has an abiding commitment to public service and pro bono work is engrained in our professional ethos. Each year, the Firm devotes tens of thousands of hours to pro bono projects that include advocating on behalf of low-income clients and the nonprofits that serve them.  

DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION 

The commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion at Simpson Thacher is evident from the top down. Creating an inclusive environment is a priority for Simpson Thacher leadership; the Firm recognizes that the diversity of its talent pool is an integral part of its ability to gather the diverse perspectives necessary to provide the best legal counsel to clients. To foster greater inclusion, the Firm actively engages diversity proponents to expand the collective understanding of race, race relations and racial justice movements and is committed to developing new ways to engage attorneys year-round on topics that will help to promote an atmosphere where everyone can thrive. This includes maintaining active affinity groups and advisory councils and hosting regular programming featuring alumni speakers in high-profile positions and initiatives that benefit all associates with respect to professional development and mentoring. The Firm also hosts an annual citywide diversity reception to further advance the dialogue among Simpson Thacher lawyers and the greater legal community. Past speakers as the event have included Issa Rae, Laverne Cox, Preet Bharara, Misty Copeland, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Bryan Stevenson. 

ALUMNI 

The knowledge and expertise that attorneys develop at Simpson Thacher has proven to be an extraordinary launch pad to myriad positions in both the public and private sector. Simpson Thacher alumni have gone on to careers with U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, the DOJ, SEC, federal and state court judges, financial services firms, entertainment and sports companies and nonprofits. This network of Firm alumni remains part of the Simpson Thacher family, and alumni often become Firm clients because of the close connections made while at Simpson. 

PRACTICE GROUP SUMMARIES: 

Simpson Thacher has a number of highly regarded practice groups.  The following are a few of the firm’s key practice groups: 

• M&A – Simpson Thacher is recognized globally for its role on behalf of parties on all sides of complex M&A transactions, buyouts, stock and asset purchases, restructurings, spinoffs, joint ventures and contested transactions. Simpson Thacher also counsels clients on a broad range of corporate governance and control matters, including proxy contests and challenges by activist investors.  
• Private Equity – Simpson Thacher is the world’s leading legal advisor in the private equity sector. Simpson Thacher’s scale and depth of experience give it insight into the needs of every participant in private equity transactions – private equity sponsors, senior bank lenders, subordinated and bridge lenders, management and financial investors and underwriters. The Firm has ranked among the top two law firms in Global Private Equity Announced Deals (by value) by Bloomberg in 11 of the past 15 years, and has been named a ‘Private Equity Practice Group of the Year’ by Law360 for ten consecutive years. 
• Banking & Finance – With a widely recognized top-level practice, Simpson Thacher counsels clients on their most sophisticated credit transactions. The Firm ranked among the top two firms as legal counsel for each of the past ten years based on financing volume by Loan Pricing Corporation. The Firm’s practices focus on many areas of the bank and syndicated lending market, including: leveraged finance, acquisition finance, including bridge financing, investment grade finance and project and energy finance. 
• Private Funds – Simpson Thacher has one of the world’s pre-eminent private funds practices. The practice is global in scope and covers funds with a wide variety of investment criteria, including buyout, hedge, real estate, energy/ infrastructure, credit, secondary, venture capital, fund-of-funds and other types of funds pursuing ‘alternative investment’ strategies, serving the world’s best-known institutional alternative asset managers, as well as smaller first-time funds and independent boutiques. 
• Real Estate – The Firm’s global real estate practice spans all areas of the real estate industry, including sophisticated real estate finance, sales and acquisitions, restructurings, real estate development, joint ventures, co-investments and partnerships. The Firm has been selected as a ‘Real Estate Practice Group of the Year’ by Law360 in eight of the past nine years. 
• Restructuring & Bankruptcy – Simpson Thacher’s depth of experience in some of the largest and most complex bankruptcies and out-of-court restructurings allows the Firm to provide effective, strategic advice to clients across every part of the capital structure, from holders of senior secured debt, to unsecured and subordinated debt, to equity. While the team excels at crafting creative and consensual out-of-court solutions to the thorniest disputes, when circumstances demand, the Firm’s bankruptcy litigators have extensive experience and sophistication to successfully prosecute complex bankruptcy cases. 
• Litigation – Clients seek the practice’s advice on high-stakes litigation and cross-border disputes, as well as government and internal investigations in the Americas, Europe and Asia. With more than 200 litigators, the practice offers a substantial bench of talent to resolve a wide array of legal issues. Clients benefit from the practice’s ability to leverage its broad experience and versatility to address their unique legal and business interests.  The litigation practice includes:
  • Antitrust & Trade Regulation 
  • Asia Litigation
  • Bankruptcy Litigation 
  • Complex Commercial Litigation 
  • ERISA Litigation 
  • False Advertising Litigation 
  • Funds Regulatory & Investigations 
  • Government & Internal Investigations 
  • Insurance & Reinsurance 
  • Intellectual Property Litigation 
  • International Arbitration 
  • International Regulatory & Compliance 
  • Mergers & Acquisitions Litigation 
  • Product Liability & Mass Tort 
  • Securities Litigation 
  • Whistleblower & False Claims Act